Jump
by Channel D
Summary: Tim and Tony are searching a playground for a spent shell used in a crime. It brings back playground memories...not always good ones...One-shot.


**Jump**

**by channelD**

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_written_: as an NFA hangman prize. The winner asked for a story of Tim & Tony on a playground.

_rating_: K plus

_genre_: drama

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_disclaimer_: I own nothing of NCIS.

- - - - -

**Now:**

Rock

Like

Pain

Can't move

Trapped?

Sounds

Unintelligible

No words in the sounds

Blinding pain

"Idiot!"

Word

- - - - -

**Then:**

"Aw, man; it's too nice a day to be wasting our time going over the same area we've been over twice before."

Tim shrugged. "I don't mind being out on a nice day. Winter will be here soon enough."

"Oh, go find some poison ivy to roll in," Tony growled. "Let's find that stupid slug and get out of here."

The two stood at the edge of a playground, where a Marine had been found, shot dead, the day before. Like most playgrounds, it was a mixture of asphalt, hard-rubber surfaces, and open grass, the latter of which was browning in the days of October's sinking sun. Yesterday morning's search had been unproductive. So had the afternoon search. Now Gibbs had threatened to tan their hides if they didn't come back with the missing slug.

"Some kid probably picked it up," Tim sighed, scanning the landscape. "Although… since this isn't attached to a school, it probably doesn't get that much kid-traffic in the middle of the week."

"I don't like playgrounds," Tony growled. "Let's just do this thing. You go left, and I'll go right."

- - - - -

**Now:**

Pain pain pain pain

Stiff

Can't move

Why?

"Stop!"

Crying

- - - - -

**Then:**

"What do you have against playgrounds? They're where kids can be kids."

Tony at first ignored the call from across the way, eyes intent on the ground, searching, searching. Then he called back, "Why do you _like_ them? Weren't you bullied on playgrounds?"

Tim blushed. "Sometimes. Not always. I was taller than most of my class, after all. And I did have some friends. I liked the slides…and the teeter-totter…and the swings."

"The equipment," Tony summed up. "You probably weren't into team games."

Again, a blush. "No. I'm…just not athletic, that way."

"You have the long legs. You could have gone out for track. That's where a lot of non-team players excel."

Tim turned even redder. It was so hard to get Tony off a subject, once his teeth were in it.

- - - - -

**Now:**

"Don't"

Don't what?

"Move"

Why?

- - - - -

**Then:**

"The slug couldn't have gone any further than this." Tim stared down at the limp grass, which could probably get one more mowing before being declared done for the year. He moved back in, toward the playground equipment.

He needed a break, and so plopped down on a swing, and just sat for a moment. "I always liked swings. One of the greatest toys ever designed."

Tony came in, only giving him a sour eye. "Stop playing, McGee. We're working."

"Who's playing?" Tim argued back, surprised by Tony's irritability. "I'm just sitting."

"You're sitting on a toy."

"What; is there a law against it?" He realized he was sounding like Tony, and Tony like him. "They build these things to hold most adults, you know. Swinging is fun." He pumped his legs a little.

"Get off there!"

"Oh, relax. Were you this way with your phys ed students?" Tim grinned, and swung a little more.

"Just stop. I want to wrap this up."

"You can get away from a lot on a swing. You asked about bullies? On a swing I could escape them, mostly…Maybe I can spot the slug better from higher up…"

- - - - -

**Now:**

Move

Yes

Get up

"Don't

or

I'll

hit

you!"

What?

Blackness…

- - - - -

**Then:**

"No, Probie! I _mean_ it. Stop goofing off!...Man; when did we reverse roles??"

Tim laughed, and pumped more, the swing rising higher and higher. "I think I see something…oh, I love this!" _Why don't gyms have swings? They should!_

"Stop it! Right now! We'll search on the ground again. Maybe the slug is close by. Just stop. Please."

"'Please?' Are you afraid of a swing? What did it ever do to you?"

"I'm not kidding, McGee! Stop it now!"

"As you wish…" All of the joys of swinging had come back to Tim in a rush. The wind whipping him, the loss-of-gravity feeling, the rise and fall of the landscape…

And now, the payoff…

At the highest point, he launched himself.

_Flying!_

_Twist to land on feet…_

_Uh oh…_

- - - - -

**Now:**

Sirens

Conscious again, and thinking more clearly.

"Tony? Let go of my head!"

"Not on your life, McDoofus. You stay still and don't move even an eyelash, or I'll hit you again!"

"You! You knocked me out!"

"To keep you from moving."

Tim blinked—against orders—and saw that Tony was crying. "What…what happened?"

"You jumped off the swing, you pinhead, with no more sense than a seven-year-old. I think you've broken your back. I'm keeping you from doing any more damage, since it's too late to knock sense into your head."

EMTs ran up, with a gurney. "We'll take it from here, sir," said one. "Good work on the immobilization." But Tony didn't let go until the other man's hands were in place, and the other EMT had snapped a collar around Tim's neck.

"I told you to stop swinging, but you didn't listen!"

"Sir…"

"Don't shush me; he needs to hear this."

"Maybe later, Tony? I hurt right now."

"No, you listen, McGee. I—"

"Let me guess. You were a dictatorial phys ed teacher, who liked to siphon off the kids' fun. And you're taking it out on me." Tim felt that there was probably more to it than that, but he didn't like Tony treating him like a child.

Tony was quiet for a moment, while the EMTs made ready to lift Tim, ever-so-carefully, onto a backboard and then the gurney. "No. I never was a teacher."

"But you majored…you said…"

"Yes, phys ed was my major. But then, one day when I had just started my student teaching, a 15-year-old jumped off a swing, just as you did, despite what the phys ed teacher had told him. Jamie Honeywell was the kid's name. And he landed just about like you did. And they—the teacher, and the other student teacher…_moved him._ Before the coach, running up, could tell them not to. They honestly thought they were doing the right thing, but…their moving him left him a quadriplegic. At age 15.

"The kid had hero-worshipped me. I continue to get Christmas cards from his parents. He still lives with them, in his 30s, subsisting on a government disability check. Never had a job. Probably never will.

"After that…I finished my student teaching, but I no longer had a desire to teach. I didn't want to have so little control over what kids would do, despite what a teacher said for them to do. So I became a cop, where I could have more control."

"And you'd have the babes and the guns."

"That, too."

Tim chuckled, then cried out as pain shot through him. "I'm really in trouble, aren't I? There's no way NCIS will cover these hospital bills. I brought this on myself."

"Sure they will," Tony said in a comforting tone, his eyes firmly on Tim's. "You were trying to get a better perspective to see the slug, and you fell off. That's in the line of duty."

"But that's not—"

"_You were trying to get a better perspective to see the slug, and you fell off._ Gibbs is going to ask me, and that's what I'll tell him. I was _here_, remember?"

"Okay…thanks…Uh, Tony? Look under my leg. My right leg."

"Don't you go getting weird on me, McGee."

"No, just do it, when they lift me up. I felt something…"

The EMTs lifted Tim onto the gurney, and as Tony crouched down, his phone rang. "Yeah, boss."

"_DiNozzo, have you found that slug yet??"_

Tony picked up the small bronze object from the ground on which Tim had lain. "Got it, boss."

"_Good. Get on back here. I have work for you two."_

"Uh, little delay on that, boss. Meet us at GW?"

"_Now what??"_

"Minor playground accident." He snapped the phone shut.

"You shouldn't have given up," Tim said as he was loaded into the ambulance. "You'd have made a great teacher."

- - - - -

**Then:**

"Mr. DiNozzo? They don't need me on the team, Mr. DiNozzo. Is it okay if I, uh, hang out on the swings?"

He looked toward the teacher, who was conferring in something with the other student teacher. _Better to ask forgiveness than permission…_ "Sure, Jamie. Just no more of that jumping off the swing, okay? You're not Superman."

"Would I do that?" The boy's brown eyes sparkled with mischief.

"I mean it, Jamie."

"Scout's honor," he grinned.

"You mess up, then my butt is on the line. Your teacher has already chewed you out for jumping. You hear me?"

"Got it, Mr. DiNozzo."

Tony turned away, and looked back only in time to see the jump; graceful in all but the landing…

-END-


End file.
